Explorer of Edregon

“And that’s the current plan,” Vin explained, glancing around their apartment’s common room. “Some giant festival to get everyone’s spirits up. What do you guys think?”

For the first time in what felt like forever, the entire group was packed into their small common room, listening to him explain Golrim’s idea. Alka was leaning against one of the walls, the Slayer’s glowing eyes trained on him as her helmeted golem face gave nothing away. Scule and Reginald were standing on the top of the couch, looking curious at what he had in mind. Shia was sitting right in front of them, trimming leaves off of Blossom as the wooden cat construct sat before her. And Lumel was sitting in a small loveseat off to the side, excitement clear across her lavender face.

“One month to hit ten different fragments one after another…” Scule muttered, rubbing his hands together as his grin widened. “A smash and grab unlike anything the universe has ever seen… Sign me up!”

“Okay, is anyone else besides Scule interested in helping out?” Vin asked, glancing hopefully at the rest of his friends as he ignored Scule’s indignant cry. “I know it’s a tall ask, as you’ve all got your own projects and lives to worry about. But my days of running off without at least asking you all to join me are long behind me. We don’t need a repeat of the ranker king incident.”

“You’re damn right we don’t,” Alka snorted, her arms crossed as she continued staring at him. “As entertaining as the idea of you getting kidnapped and tossed in jail a second time would be, let’s avoid that as long as possible. Anyway, I can’t commit to the full month, but I’ll at least join up for some. Without the seventh wave of Earthers, it’s not like I have a new set of recruits to put through the paces and turn into Slayers.”

“Now that the dryads’ magic crisis is largely over, I don’t actually need to wander around as much hunting for a powerful, nature-aligned artifact for them,” Shia admitted, tapping her chin with her shears. “That said, I do love making new friends and discovering new plants. And until my master reaches out to let me know he’s completed his walk across the realms and found a new world to settle in, I don’t really have much to do beyond the usual. My answer is the same as Alka’s. I can’t commit to a full month, but I’m happy to help out.”

“That’s more than I could have asked for,” Vin said, turning his smile onto Lumel. “Lumel?”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, the pulmon’s words unusually firm and not leaving room for debate. “Unless I’m injured or an emergency comes up, I’ll be with you for the entire thing, you don’t even have to ask.”

“Awww, look at our timid little Lumel, all grown up,” Scule teased, causing Lumel to blush slightly. Shaking her head, Shia reached up and flicked Scule off the couch without even looking, ignoring the petian’s shout as he went flying.

“Where are you planning to start?” Shia asked. “Back near the fragments that the Rebel Queen went through during her conquest?”

“That’s the plan,” Vin nodded. “It’s sad to say, but seeing as the trogums most likely killed anyone in those fragments, I figure those remaining ones on the southern side probably won’t take very long. Though I do also want to check in and see how Guardian and the surviving trogums are doing without their queen.”

Prior to the battle for wave seven, Vin and the team had worked to take down the Rebel Queen after discovering that she had begun a conquest across Edregon. As far as they knew, five entire fragments had been utterly annihilated from the mindless trogums as they were forced to obey their queen’s mental orders. Vin and Alka had managed to kill the queen and set the trogums free, but the damage had already been done. It had been nearly two weeks since leaving Guardian, one of the few elite trogums that could actually think for themselves, in charge of gathering up the more mindless ones to try and create some sort of settlement.

“I know I was making a lot of jokes, but I want to point out that I can’t commit to the full month either,” Scule said, climbing back onto the top of the couch and kicking Shia’s braid. “I’m planning on heading back into the citadel within the next week or two to check up on the family. Though if we can find any unique mushrooms between now and then to give Copi a chance to experiment with his brews, that would be nice.”

Reginald let out a happy squeak, using his tail to pat Scule on the top of his head as the Rogue scowled.

“You know, maybe I’m overstepping a bit here… but why not bring Copi and Nute to Terra’s festival?” Shia asked. “They’d like something like that, wouldn’t they? With Lumel’s magic, getting in and out of the citadel wall is a breeze when Alka and her spatial-resistant body isn’t involved.”

“I don’t know… my parents would probably kill me if they found out,” Scule said, his concerned look quickly morphing into a large grin at the thought. “Which makes it a fantastic idea! I’ll ask them and let you guys know what they say. Assuming Lumel is willing to help.”

“Of course! I had a lot of fun talking with Nute last we saw them,” Lumel said, smiling at Scule. “She’s a very cute and inquisitive young girl.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Scule chuckled. “Alright, Vin, you’ve got your team. Sort of. When do we head out?”

“First thing tomorrow morning,” he said, already growing excited to have everyone together again. “I’ve got one last thing I need to take care of tonight before we go anywhere.”

Unlawfully taken from NovelPhoenix, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

At this point, Vin had a lot of things he felt responsible for when it came to Terra, but he didn’t have all that many direct responsibilities beyond exploring the world of Edregon at large and ensuring they didn’t have any threats breathing down their necks. However, there was at least one glaring item he’d signed up for, and he was doing his best to not let it fall to the wayside.

“Oh, hey Vin,” Jess said, the easygoing woman smiling at him as she opened her door to find him standing there. Her usual simple, hoop earrings had been replaced with more complicated ones that looked like a chain of hoops nearly going down to her shoulders. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to be heading out for potentially some time, so I figured I should pop in and take stock of how you three were doing before I leave,” he explained. “Are Shuvo and Thomas in?”

“Yeah, we’re playing cards. Come in!”

Stepping past her, Vin took in the sight of his three apprentices before him. In the past, he’d helped two people learn the bare basics of magic. Wanda had become a Magical Fisherman, and Ronald a Magical Baker. However, neither of those two had really had a love of magic like he did. For them, magic was more of achieving a means to an end.

These three before him were quite different.

“Master!” Shuvo exclaimed. The elf knocked his chair back as his eyes widened and he jumped to his feet. “We’ve already learned all of the runic formations you left with Thomas and his Iron Mind passive! We’re ready for more!”

“That’s why I came by,” Vin chuckled, doing his best to ignore the fact that Shuvo was continuing to call him ‘master’ despite his insistence he stop. He’d accidentally picked up Shuvo in a fragment of elven Tamers to the south of them when he and a drunk Shia had revealed the elf wasn’t actually a mage like he’d been claiming. In the end, despite the fact that the village ended up already knowing the Alchemist had been pretending to be something he wasn’t, Vin had taken it upon himself to offer to teach Shuvo the magic he’d always dreamed of learning.

Though he had a very different idea of what a teacher-student relationship should be.

“Good to see you again, Vin!” Thomas signed, the mute Student beaming at him as he put his hand of cards down. “You couldn’t have waited like three minutes, though? I was about to take Shuvo for everything he had!”

“Sorry, I thought you’d be more interested in magic than betting… Wait, what are you guys even betting?” Vin asked, chuckling as he switched from sign language back to the spoken word. “It’s not like Terra has a currency.”

“We’ve been using pebbles mainly, but the winner of the whole pot gets the real prize,” Jess said, picking up and waving a slip of paper in front of him. “One whole ‘leave me alone’ ticket, redeemable at any point and good for twenty-four hours.”

“Theodore still has those going around, huh?” Vin asked, shaking his head at the fact that the flamboyant Spy had yet to be run out of Terra with how much of a pain he liked to be to people. “Anyway, I don’t have a ton of time. Like I told Jess, my team and I are heading out tomorrow morning, and I might not be back for awhile. Shuvo said you guys learned all the runic formations I left with you. Is that true?”

“Yeah, we’ve got them down,” Jess confirmed, her earrings swinging back and forth as she nodded. “Sense Magic, Sense Earth, Sense Life, and even Create Water and Renewal. Those tier-1 spells were definitely the trickiest.”

“‘Trickiest’ she says,” Thomas signed, rolling his eyes. “She got the formations down twice as fast as either of us did. It’s honestly pretty annoying.”

“Everyone learns at their own pace,” Vin said, not bothering to hide his surprise at the fact that all three of them had managed to learn the last three spells he’d left them with almost no oversight on his part. “The fact that you three can work together and help where one person might be stuck is huge. I doubt I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t had plenty of people teaching and helping me along.”

“Master, not to question your methods, but why leave us with these specific spells in the first place?” Shuvo asked. “I understand the benefit of having a healing spell of course, I am just curious about the others.”

“I figured trying out a few different affinities and learning spells to keep yourselves alive in the worst-case scenario was a good start,” Vin shrugged. “It’ll certainly never hurt being able to conjure water out of thin air and heal minor injuries you might receive. However, it’s about time you all started thinking about what kinds of mages you want to be. If you want to develop an affinity and focus on one particular type of magic, or being more general like I am.”

“I want to work with gemstones and artifacts,” Jess said, having made her interest known from the very start. She’d taken a crafter class upon arriving on Edregon with a specialization in jewelry. In fact, she hadn’t even realized her interest and natural knack regarding magic until she’d spotted the teaching artifact Shuvo had left out on the common room table. “So whatever magic helps with that.”

“I will follow in your footsteps and become a generalist mage!” Shuvo declared loudly, looking excited.

“Same here, I want to learn every bit of magic there is!” Thomas grinned.

“In that case, it sounds like all three of you are in the same boat,” Vin said, realizing he was growing just as excited as they were as he looked between their eager faces. As much as he enjoyed helping Wanda and Ronald, the fact that his three newest students wanted nothing more than to explore the wonders of magic like he did made his chest feel as though he’d just cast his Warmth spell on himself.

“That’s what I like to hear!” Vin continued, laughing as he held up a glowing finger and began sketching some runic formations in the air. “In that case, let’s get through a few more tier-1 spells to practice before we do anything too wild. We have to be careful not to accidentally give any of you an affinity while your magic attributes are still low, but that shouldn’t be a problem for too long. Then, once you guys hit level 20 and prestige, and have Iron Mind for yourselves from your level 15 passives, we can start getting more individualized with your instruction. Sound good?”

Vin got two ‘yeah!’s and an eager head nod from Thomas, and his smile grew only wider as he continued drawing.

Maybe having apprentices wasn’t as bad as he first thought.